​Race and Identity

Race and Identity

Asian Identity

One of our questions focused on whether people feel that their Asian origins were an important part of their personal identity. Three-quarters of our respondents (74%) agreed or strongly agreed with this sentiment. This finding was roughly the same across different sub-ethnicities, ages, geography, and whether they were born in the US, Asia, or elsewhere.

Asian Pride

We asked men to state whether they were proud to be Asian. And while overall, three-quarters (75%) of Asian men agreed or strongly agreed, we did find some differences in different sub-ethnicities.

East Asian men were most likely to respond "strongly agree" at 54% compared to Southeast, South Asian, or Mixed / Other men. South Asian men were less likely to agree strongly, and twice as many South Asian men responded "disagree" or "strongly disagree" to the statement when compared to East Asian men.

Beyond this difference, we did not find statistically significant when reviewing the data against age, geography, or naturalization status.

Feeling American, Being Seen as American

A significant majority of respondents (82%) responded "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" with the statement "I consider myself an American". While directionally similarly, there was a statistically significant difference between men born in the US (88%) vs born in Asia (79%) for responding "Agree" or "Strongly Agree". Otherwise, these findings did not differ across sub-ethnicities, geographies, or age.

However, men had more ambivalence to the idea that the people around felt the same way, with only 61% responding "agree" or "strongly agree" to the statement "the people who encounter me in day-to-day life consider me an American".

There were several statistically significant factors that influenced whether or not someone felt that the people around them considered them to be American, including geography, sub-ethnicity, and naturalization status.

Geography: Men living in the West Coast were more likely to respond "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" (67%) responses compared to those living in the East Coast (59%), and everywhere else (48%).

Sub-ethnicity: Men who identified as "Mixed race / Other" had higher "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" responses (74%) compared to those who identified as East Asian (63%), Southeast Asian (56%), and South Asian (49%).

Naturalization Status: Men born in US were more likely to respond "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" (65%) compared with men born in Asia (58%), or men of other backgrounds (45%).